Below is a good question from and advertising consultant and what follows is my response:

Good Morning Dale,

My name is Steve Purath and I’m a print and Cars.com executive for Gannett Wisconsin Media.  I have a franchise dealer who is asking what his search result page as a percentage of vehicle detail page is.  While I understand that this is a vital piece of information for the dealer principle, I don’t understand what’s considered a good standard of performance. Is there an industry minimum percentage that a dealer should strive to reach? For example, I did the math for my dealer and found that their store is at 2.9%. Is this percentage considered acceptable or are they at/below minimum expectations and need to make changes?  One last thought.  I reviewed a copy of your presentation, Velocity 2.0, and noticed that you are reviewing a one month snapshot.  When a dealer is looking at whether or not Cars.com is being effective for their store should we be looking at the past year for a true gauge of performance? 

Thank you in advance for your help.  I look forward to hearing your response soon. – Steve

Steve,

Thanks so much for your note and question.  I frequently say that 3% conversion of SRPs to VDPs is minimally acceptable.  Having said this however, I’ve found the minimum percentage from Cars.com to be about 1 point higher.  I believe the difference has something to do with the way that each site calculates their numbers.  Generally however, the 3% to 5% range is where I expect a dealer to be.

Regarding your question as to the proper period for evaluation, I frankly would be less concerned about what the site has done for me in the past and much more attuned to what it’s doing for me in the present.  I encourage dealers to track SRPs, VDPs and VDP percentages on a week to week basis.  If they see their numbers dropping off, that is a signal that they potentially need to make adjustments in a number of areas including pricing, inventory, pictures, descriptions and maybe even ultimately the site provider.   Does this more frequent approach make sense to you? I would be interested in your thoughts and again, thanks for reaching out.

Dale

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